Back to shadow-fighting?

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) met briefly on Tuesday morning to hear a short statement on the draft programme of work from the incoming CD President, Ambassador Alex Van Meeuwen of Belgium.

Ambassador Van Meeuwen made some short introductory remarks concerning the draft programme of work, CD/WP.559, which was tabled by the outgoing president last week. He announced that the draft decision on a programme of work does not enjoy consensus and that he would continue consultations between the six presidents and resume multilateral discussions in the second part of the CD’s 2010 session. Ambassador Van Meeuwen finished by reminding delegates what UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said to the CD in May 2009, that we live in an era of interdependency and that crises must be answered through multilateralism and cooperation. Ambassador Van Meeuwen argued that the CD therefore must not allow itself to put pointless and damaging obstacles in front of the noble goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

Notes from the gallery
After a comprehensive and open debate on Thursday, the CD seems to have run out of steam this week. While further consultations indeed are needed, we hope that those countries that voiced concerns about the draft programme of work last week will submit concrete proposals that can contribute to moving the CD forward. There are only two weeks left of the first part of the CD's 2010 session. Since the next plenary meeting is not scheduled until Tuesday, 23 March, it is important that CD members make efforts to avoid returning to the usual business of silent disagreement and continued stalemate behind closed doors. The openness and transparency of the discussion last week was not only appreciated by civil society, but received widespread support from delegations. As Ambassador Van den Ijssel from the Netherlands stated last week, “after a period of shadow-fighting, it is important that we are out in the open.” In order to not move backwards and let yet another session conclude without progress, there must be a serious attempt to continue discussing specific measures to improve the draft programme of work. We hope that the CD can make an effort to achieve such improvements of CD/WP.559 and begin substantive work immediately.

Notes from the outside world 
This week, we include a contribution from Christophe Barbey, coordinator at APRED, a research institute aiming at making peace by peaceful means and at promoting the non-violence of institutions of all sorts:

In this world, we think that everyone is responsible for a bit of the peace of everyone else. We are also convinced that, progressively, a global peace is the only safe way to assure a future for mankind, as well as a fair life to all its members. However, we think that at the Conference on Disarmament, as the only permanent body addressing matters of arms control, you have a special responsibility to assure this future of peace and well-being. We therefore follow you work closely and regularly and wish you progress and success.

Next meeting
The next plenary meeting of the CD is scheduled for Tuesday, 23 March at 10:00 AM.